


Shooting Star

by Golden_Asp



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Demonic Possession, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Post-Endgame, Suicide, ironstrange bingo, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-11-13 20:00:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18037970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Golden_Asp/pseuds/Golden_Asp
Summary: Howard said Stark men are made of iron.  They don’t falter, they’re not afraid, they never fail, they never give in, they never weaken.The thing is, iron on its own is actually a fairly weak metal.  It rusts, it bends, and given enough stress, well, it breaks.Stark men are made of iron.Tony is not.





	Shooting Star

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first offering for my ironstrange bingo card, 'made of iron' square (B1). And oh boy did it get angsty. super sad. I'm sorry, Tony and Stephen, you don't deserve this.
> 
> not beta-ed

_Howard said Stark men are made of iron. They don’t falter, they’re not afraid, they never fail, they never give in, they never weaken._

_The thing is, iron on its own is actually a fairly weak metal. It rusts, it bends, and given enough stress, well, it breaks._

_Stark men are made of iron. For a long time, hell, for most of my life, I believed that._

_It’s a load of shit._

_Stark men are made of iron._

_I am not._

:::

Stephen Strange struggled against the demons holding him down, against the demon burrowing its way inside him. He could hear the shouts of the Avengers, the stoic voices of the sorcerers, the desperate screams of Tony.

“Oh, Tony,” Stephen whispered, body sagging between the demons.

“Without the Eye you are weak,” the demon inside him whispered. “I can feel you calling out for the one you call Tony. Anthony. You love him, and yet you’ve never told him. Maybe we should tell him together, hmm? And then rip him to shreds.”

“No,” Stephen said, trying to cast the demon out. He screamed as it tore through his mental defenses, ripping through walls he’d long thought impenetrable. 

He tried to fight it. He did. He’d faced Dormammu, Thanos, Tony’s death millions of times, but he couldn’t overcome the demon. He was weak, useless, broken. How could he have ever thought that Tony could love him? 

“I’ll give you my body, just don’t hurt him,” Stephen whispered, trying desperately to make a bargain. He was good at bargaining, but not good enough.

“I will take your body, and make you watch as I kill them all.” The demon turned Stephen’s head, looking at the writhing mass of the Cloak held by another demon.

“We will start with you,” the demon said, Stephen’s hands tearing the Cloak. The Cloak tried to wrap around his hands, his neck, anything, but it was no match for Stephen’s demonic strength. 

Stephen sobbed in his mind as the Cloak embraced him one last time, falling to pieces around him, nothing but torn pieces of fabric.

Stephen felt his consciousness tear away, and he knew death was coming for the Avengers.

:::

Natasha was the first to fall, a blast of magic to her chest. Stephen watched through his own eyes as his body, no longer in his control, tore through them. Wong crumbled to the ground, silent and still. Their attacks couldn’t touch him; he brushed them off without a thought.

They were nothing; puny little mortal flecks of existence. The demon was only interested in one man—Iron Man.

It didn’t take long to get to him, and Stephen despaired.

Iron Man landed in front of them, helmet melting away. “Stephen, what the fuck?” Tony demanded.

“Not just Stephen, not anymore,” the demon said, using Stephen’s mouth. Tony took a step back. He smelled of fear and the demon liked it.

“Stephen…baby…please,” Tony whispered. Stephen railed against the prison of his mind. Tony had never called him that before, and he could see it in his eyes, those whiskey orbs wide with fear…and love.

_“Let me go!”_ Stephen screamed into his mind.

“No,” the demon said, answering both Tony and Stephen.

He lunged at Tony, scarred fingers curled into claws. Tony threw himself backwards, helmet reforming around his head.

“He loves you, you know?” the demon taunted, tossing a fireball at Tony. “He’s loved you since Titan, since watching you die fourteen million times.”

“Shut up!” Tony yelled, dodging another blast. Stephen thought he could hear tears in Tony’s voice. He knew that Tony had had a difficult time of things after Thanos’ defeat; mentally and physically. Pepper had been killed in an accident, he blamed himself for every death at Thanos’ hands, and he was always trying to be prepared for the next threat. He’d started spending a lot of time with Stephen and Stephen hadn’t wanted to let himself hope that maybe there was something more there. They were taking it slow, learning each other, extending the hands of friendship first.

They had gone too slow. It was too late.

Tony tumbled through the air and righted himself, repulsors humming. Stephen railed against the iron control of his mind, trying to break through.

“You will fail,” the demon told Tony. “As you have always failed. You failed to be the perfect son, the perfect husband, the perfect hero. You failed to save them all.”

“Shut up,” Tony whispered, his voice cracking.

Stephen screamed, raging against the demon. He felt a crack in his prison and seized it, gaining control for a moment.

He collapsed in a heap, the demon cornered in his mind. He couldn’t hold it for long; the demon was far too strong.

“Tony,” he whispered, lifting his head.

Tony landed in front of him, the helmet receding again. He looked down at Stephen, eyes scared.

“Stephen, what happened?”

“The demon we were fighting took over my body. He’s still here. I won’t be able to hold him long.”

Tony looked panicked. “What do I do? How do we defeat it?”

Stephen let out a soft breath, meeting Tony’s eyes. 

“We don’t.”

“No, I don’t believe that. There’s got to be a way.”

“Tony. Anthony. There’s not,” Stephen whispered, trembling as he struggled to hold the demon.

“There has to be,” Tony whispered, his voice desperate. 

“There might be one,” Stephen said.

“What is it?”

“Kill me.”

Tony reared back, eyes wide. Tears rolled down his face and he shook his head.

“Not that. You can’t ask me to do that,” Tony whispered.

“There’s no other way.”

“Don’t tell me that!” Tony shouted, dashing away his tears.

“Tony, I can’t hold him. If I die, he dies with me. The Avengers are dying because of me. I tore the Cloak to shreds. I think Wong is dead at my hands. The demon wants to kill you. It wants to make me watch as my hands kill you.”

“How is that different from asking me to kill you?”

“I’m so sorry, Anthony,” Stephen whispered.

Tony looked down at him, shaking. Stephen struggled to hold the demon, but he was quickly losing strength.

“Please, Tony,” Stephen whispered.

Tony threw his head back and let out an agonized scream. The sound broke Stephen’s heart. He’d heard it before, in those futures on Titan. It was the sound Tony made when someone he loved died. It was the sound he made before doing something rash.

Tony stared at him, tears in his eyes.

“Please,” Stephen whispered again.

Tony lifted his hand, repulsor glowing.

Stephen could hear the demon screaming at him, begging, trying to bargain. 

Tony pointed his hand at Stephen’s chest, right over his heart.

“I love you,” Stephen said.

Tony closed his eyes, hand shaking.

“I love you too,” Tony whispered, barely audible over the sound of the repulsor beam.

The demon screamed.

Stephen smiled.

Tony fired the beam.

The sound of Stephen’s body hitting the ground echoed around the silent battlefield.

:::

_Stark men are made of iron. I wish. I wish I could hide behind a wall of iron after what I did._

_Haven’t I lost enough? Haven’t I given enough? How much more could I lose? How much more could I possibly give?_

_I have nothing left to give._

_I’m not iron. I’m not strong._

_I’m nothing._

:::

Tony skipped the funeral. He’d skipped Steve’s. He’d skipped Pepper’s. He skipped Wong’s. He skipped Natasha’s.

He couldn’t go to Stephen’s. He put Stephen in the ground. He blew a hole in Stephen’s chest, stared into his eyes and ended his life.

He fell back to his old pal alcohol. He drank himself unconscious, trying desperately to drink himself to death.

He failed. The nanites that kept his heart beating wouldn’t let him die.

He hated them. He hated Stephen. 

He hated himself.

:::

Tony staggered into the wall, screaming his rage at the inanimate object. He threw his glass, delighting in the shattered pieces that rained down.

Pepper had been dead for two years. Stephen for almost a year.

Tony saw him everywhere, blaming him, thanking him, winking at him. His last words haunted Tony, running through his mind.

It wasn’t fair. They had wasted so much time.

He saw Stephen’s face every time he closed his eyes; a serene smile on his face, waiting for his death at Tony’s hands.

“Boss, Colonel Rhodes wishes to speak to you,” FRIDAY said, voice quiet.

“I don’t want to see him,” Tony slurred, glaring at one of the cameras in the ceiling.

Rhodey and Peter and the others tried to get through to Tony, to tell him it wasn’t his fault. What did they know? They hadn’t pulled the trigger on the man they had harbored a secret love for more than a year. They didn’t have to see his eyes, begging and waiting for his death.

Tony found another bottle and pried it open, taking a long swallow of the whiskey.

He didn’t want to be around the others. They didn’t know. They couldn’t know what he was going through.

He stumbled to the balcony, staring up at the sky. He could barely make out the stars from the light pollution, dim pinpricks on a black velvet blanket.

He ignored the knocking on the door; Rhodey’s quiet voice and Peter’s desperate cries.

He stared at the stars, weeping.

:::

_I loved the stars once. When I was a kid I wanted to go up there, explore, revel in the wonder of space._

_And then I saw it. I saw the horrors that wait up there, biding their time until they can strike._

_I saw my death in the stars, and I accepted it._

_I survived, and God, I wish I hadn’t._

_I knew what was coming and I tried to prepare, but I failed. I always failed._

_Years later, I found myself in space again, and the cold beauty of it offered no comfort._

_If you strike iron in the same place over and over, introducing stressors, it grows brittle. It grows weak._

_I see my death in the stars._

_I accept it._

:::

Tony tapped the arc reactor, body engulfed by nanites. He heard Rhodey shout for him as the door finally gave way, but Tony blasted into the air.

He rocketed towards space. He remembered those early flights with JARVIS, solving the icing problem. He’d been so much more…innocent then. He wished he could go back. There was so much he would change.

He powered through the atmosphere, ignoring FRIDAY’s pleas to return dirtside. His suit turned red with heat as he shot ever upward. The atmosphere parted before him, revealing the frigid splendor of space.

He floated above the planet, watching it spin ever on. It would continue spinning long after he was gone. Everyone would move on. It was better this way.

Tony turned away from the earth, looking over the expanse of space. It truly was beautiful; he could see that now.

“FRIDAY, shut down the nanites,” Tony whispered, staring at the stars.

“What?” FRIDAY asked.

“Shut them down. All of them.”

“But…you’ll die,” she said.

“I know.”

“Boss…Tony…”

“No, baby girl. This is a direct order. My last one. Shut them down. I’m tired. So very tired…”

FRIDAY was silent.

“My choice. It’s not on you, sweetheart,” Tony said.

The distant stars were the same color as Stephen’s eyes. There was nothing terrifying about space. 

He was going home.

“I’m coming, Stephen,” Tony whispered.

“Goodbye…” FRIDAY whispered.

“Goodbye, FRIDAY.”

He felt the nanites in his bones shut down, his heart stuttering wildly in his chest, his lungs unable to take a full breath. His body was in such ruin that the nanites were the only things keeping him alive.

He was glad they were dead. He’d been trying for so long.

His helmet receded, crawling back into the arc reactor. The blue light flickered in his chest.

Tony smiled, and the arc reactor went out.

Stark men are made of iron, and iron burns.

 

__

_No one is looking up when a shooting star streaks across the heavens, an iron meteor crashing to its final resting place._

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos are love!


End file.
